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Editor's note: This piece, and several others on Milan, complement the CNNGo TV series. Starting with a tour through the city with two top fashion models and a photographer, this month's CNNGo TV episode then ventures into the "fashion quadrangle," arguably the most fashionable shopping district on the planet, and also takes a trip to the city's most famed umbrella maker. (CNN) -- With his white hair, tweed jacket, a pince-nez and sharp wit, he's clearly a sophisticated man of the world. But Francesco Maglia is also one of Italy's most exclusive umbrella makers -- and looks every inch the craftsman. "Chino," as he likes to be called, is the fifth-generation descendant of another Francesco Maglia, the man who in 1854 founded the Maglia Umbrella Company in a town near Brescia, in northeast Italy. The company relocated to Milan in 1876. Today, Maglia's workshop is tucked away in the residential area of Via Ripamonti, 20 minutes or so from the city's most fashionable quarters. Every umbrella produced here is handmade using an 80-step traditional process. They retail for more than $300. Maglia decorates them in an "English style," either in plain colors or patterned with pinstripes, tartan or regimental stripes. Each umbrella is produced from a single shaft of wood -- usually chestnut, ash, walnut or cherry, but more exotic Malacca cane and whangee bamboo are often used. | 
